ncurses support?

[097115]

Is it possible to use your image for cross-compilig a project that uses ncurses?

I tried issuing apt-get install libncurses5-dev libncursesw5-dev (in my CI @ GitLab) but it failed with: the following:

$ apt-get install libncurses5 libncurses5-dev libncursesw5-dev
Reading package lists...
Building dependency tree...
Reading state information...
E: Unable to locate package libncurses5
E: Unable to locate package libncurses5-dev
E: Unable to locate package libncursesw5-dev

Would be grateful for some advice :)

[joseluisq]

I did pick up the Hello World example and with this below it compiles only for Linux (dynamically linked) binary.

root@98c165d333de:~/src# apt-get update
# Get:1 http://security.debian.org/debian-security bullseye-security InRelease [44.1 kB]
# Get:2 http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye InRelease [116 kB]
# Get:3 http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye-updates InRelease [39.4 kB]
# Get:4 http://security.debian.org/debian-security bullseye-security/main amd64 Packages [97.5 kB]
# Get:5 http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye/main amd64 Packages [8180 kB]
# Get:6 http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye-updates/main amd64 Packages [2592 B]
# Fetched 8479 kB in 3s (2866 kB/s)                         
root@98c165d333de:~/src# apt-get install libc-dev libncurses-dev libncursesw6 ncurses-base
# Reading package lists... Donecurses-dev libncursesw6 ncurses-base
# Reading package lists... Done
# Building dependency tree... Done
# Reading state information... Done
# Note, selecting 'libc6-dev' instead of 'libc-dev'
# libc6-dev is already the newest version (2.31-13+deb11u2).
# libc6-dev set to manually installed.
# libncursesw6 is already the newest version (6.2+20201114-2).
# libncursesw6 set to manually installed.
# ncurses-base is already the newest version (6.2+20201114-2).
# ncurses-base set to manually installed.
# Suggested packages:
#   ncurses-doc
# The following NEW packages will be installed:
#   libncurses-dev
# 0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
# Need to get 344 kB of archives.
# After this operation, 2407 kB of additional disk space will be used.
# Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
# Get:1 http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye/main amd64 libncurses-dev amd64 6.2+20201114-2 [344 kB]
# Fetched 344 kB in 0s (1339 kB/s)      
# debconf: delaying package configuration, since apt-utils is not installed
# Selecting previously unselected package libncurses-dev:amd64.
# (Reading database ... 19895 files and directories currently installed.)
# Preparing to unpack .../libncurses-dev_6.2+20201114-2_amd64.deb ...
# Unpacking libncurses-dev:amd64 (6.2+20201114-2) ...
# Setting up libncurses-dev:amd64 (6.2+20201114-2) ...
root@98c165d333de:~/src# CC=o64-clang CXX=o64-clang++ \
    cargo build --verbose --release --target=x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu 
#   Compiling cc v1.0.72
#   Compiling libc v0.2.109
#   Compiling pkg-config v0.3.23
#     Running `rustc --crate-name build_script_build /root/.cargo/registry/src/git.luolix.top-1ecc6299db9ec823/libc-0.2.109/build.rs --error-format=json --json=diagnostic-rendered-ansi --crate-type bin --emit=dep-info,link -C embed-bitcode=no -C debug-assertions=off --cfg 'feature="default"' --cfg 'feature="std"' -C metadata=827aeb01c32c5acb -C extra-filename=-827aeb01c32c5acb --out-dir /root/src/target/release/build/libc-827aeb01c32c5acb -L dependency=/root/src/target/release/deps --cap-lints allow`
#     Running `rustc --crate-name pkg_config /root/.cargo/registry/src/git.luolix.top-1ecc6299db9ec823/pkg-config-0.3.23/src/lib.rs --error-format=json --json=diagnostic-rendered-ansi --crate-type lib --emit=dep-info,metadata,link -C embed-bitcode=no -C debug-assertions=off -C metadata=ee5a0a1751b50362 -C extra-filename=-ee5a0a1751b50362 --out-dir /root/src/target/release/deps -L dependency=/root/src/target/release/deps --cap-lints allow`
#     Running `rustc --crate-name cc --edition=2018 /root/.cargo/registry/src/git.luolix.top-1ecc6299db9ec823/cc-1.0.72/src/lib.rs --error-format=json --json=diagnostic-rendered-ansi --crate-type lib --emit=dep-info,metadata,link -C embed-bitcode=no -C debug-assertions=off -C metadata=facab8ecbf9ea3b4 -C extra-filename=-facab8ecbf9ea3b4 --out-dir /root/src/target/release/deps -L dependency=/root/src/target/release/deps --cap-lints allow`
#     Running `/root/src/target/release/build/libc-827aeb01c32c5acb/build-script-build`
#     Running `rustc --crate-name libc /root/.cargo/registry/src/git.luolix.top-1ecc6299db9ec823/libc-0.2.109/src/lib.rs --error-format=json --json=diagnostic-rendered-ansi,artifacts --crate-type lib --emit=dep-info,metadata,link -C opt-level=3 -C linker-plugin-lto --cfg 'feature="default"' --cfg 'feature="std"' -C metadata=b61d92c8da6ac69f -C extra-filename=-b61d92c8da6ac69f --out-dir /root/src/target/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/release/deps --target x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu -L dependency=/root/src/target/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/release/deps -L dependency=/root/src/target/release/deps --cap-lints allow --cfg freebsd11 --cfg libc_priv_mod_use --cfg libc_union --cfg libc_const_size_of --cfg libc_align --cfg libc_core_cvoid --cfg libc_packedN --cfg libc_cfg_target_vendor --cfg libc_non_exhaustive --cfg libc_ptr_addr_of`
#   Compiling ncurses v5.101.0
#     Running `rustc --crate-name build_script_build /root/.cargo/registry/src/git.luolix.top-1ecc6299db9ec823/ncurses-5.101.0/build.rs --error-format=json --json=diagnostic-rendered-ansi --crate-type bin --emit=dep-info,link -C embed-bitcode=no -C debug-assertions=off --cfg 'feature="default"' -C metadata=15097c1fbbdb97fb -C extra-filename=-15097c1fbbdb97fb --out-dir /root/src/target/release/build/ncurses-15097c1fbbdb97fb -L dependency=/root/src/target/release/deps --extern cc=/root/src/target/release/deps/libcc-facab8ecbf9ea3b4.rlib --extern pkg_config=/root/src/target/release/deps/libpkg_config-ee5a0a1751b50362.rlib --cap-lints allow`
#     Running `/root/src/target/release/build/ncurses-15097c1fbbdb97fb/build-script-build`
#     Running `rustc --crate-name ncurses /root/.cargo/registry/src/git.luolix.top-1ecc6299db9ec823/ncurses-5.101.0/src/lib.rs --error-format=json --json=diagnostic-rendered-ansi --crate-type lib --emit=dep-info,metadata,link -C opt-level=3 -C linker-plugin-lto --cfg 'feature="default"' -C metadata=55fb7de5fd48fab1 -C extra-filename=-55fb7de5fd48fab1 --out-dir /root/src/target/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/release/deps --target x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu -L dependency=/root/src/target/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/release/deps -L dependency=/root/src/target/release/deps --extern libc=/root/src/target/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/release/deps/liblibc-b61d92c8da6ac69f.rmeta --cap-lints allow -l ncurses -l tinfo -l dl`
#   Compiling helloworld v0.0.0 (/root/src)
#     Running `rustc --crate-name helloworld --edition=2018 src/main.rs --error-format=json --json=diagnostic-rendered-ansi --crate-type bin --emit=dep-info,link -C opt-level=3 -C lto -C metadata=b62da1e72c50c2e3 -C extra-filename=-b62da1e72c50c2e3 --out-dir /root/src/target/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/release/deps --target x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu -L dependency=/root/src/target/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/release/deps -L dependency=/root/src/target/release/deps --extern ncurses=/root/src/target/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/release/deps/libncurses-55fb7de5fd48fab1.rlib`
#    Finished release [optimized] target(s) in 8.38s
root@98c165d333de:~/src# ls -lah target/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/release/helloworld
# -rwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1.5M Dec  6 21:28 target/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/release/helloworld
root@98c165d333de:~/src# target/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/release/helloworld

Note: CC=o64-clang CXX=o64-clang++ is needed because your crate require C bindings. See Building *-sys crates

For Musl and Darwin you need more setup and headers in-place to compile. Unfortunately ncurses C lib is not included in this Docker image. But it could be a kind of feature request for future inclusion.

[joseluisq]

I'm not fully aware about ncurses-rs however looking around, it seems to have some difficulties building for ARM targets.
So some people suggest termion since it is bindless. So maybe is what you want to have a look too.